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Butter sculptures often depict animals, people, buildings and other objects. They are best known as attractions at state fairs in the United States as lifesize cows and people, but can also be found on banquet tables and even small decorative butter pats.〔 Butter carving was an ancient craft in Tibet, Babylon, Roman Britain and elsewhere. The earliest documented butter sculptures date from Europe in 1536, where they were used on banquet tables. The earliest pieces in the modern sense as public art date from ''ca.'' 1870s America, created by Caroline Shawk Brooks, a farm woman from Helena, Arkansas.〔 The heyday of butter sculpturing was about 1890-1930,〔 but butter sculptures are still a popular attraction at agricultural fairs, banquet tables and as decorative butter patties. ==History== The history of carving food into sculptured objects is ancient.〔Pamela H. Simpson. (''Butter Cows and Butter Buildings: A History of an Unconventional Sculptural Medium'' ), Winterthur Portfolio 41, no. 1 (Spring 2007): 1-19.〕 Archaeologists have found bread and pudding molds of animal and human shapes at sites from Babylon to Roman Britain.〔Phyllis Pray Bober, ''Art, Culture, and Cuisine: Ancient and Medieval Gastronomy'' (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1999), 66–67; also George C. Boon, "A Roman Pastry Cook’s Mould from Silchester", ''Antiquaries Journal'' 38 ( July 1958): 237–40.〕 Butter sculpture is an ancient Tibetan Buddhist tradition; yak butter and dye are still used to create temporary symbols for the Tibetan New Year and other religious celebrations.〔(【引用サイトリンク】title=Butter Sculpture Tradition Melting Away )〕 In Europe, during the Renaissance and Baroque periods molding food was commonly done for wealthy banquets.〔 It was during this period that the earliest known reference to a butter sculpture is found.〔 In 1536 Bartolomeo Scappi, cook to Pope Pius V, organized a feast composed of nine scenes elaborately carved out of food, each carried in episodically as centerpieces for a banquet.〔 Scappi mentioned several butter sculptures for the feast, including an elephant with a palanquin, a figure of Hercules struggling with a lion, and a Moor on a camel.〔Bartolomeo Scappi, ''Opera'' (1570; Venice: Alessandro de Vecchi, 1622), cited in Visser, ''The Rituals of Dinner''〕 Another early reference is found in the biography of Antonio Canova (1757–1822), who said he first came to his patron’s attention when as a humble kitchen boy he sculpted an impressive butter lion for a banquet - the story is now thought apocryphal, though it reaffirms the existence of butter sculptures during that period.〔 Butter sculpting continued into the 18th century when English dairy maids molded butter pats into decorative shapes.〔 The earliest butter sculpture in the modern sense (as public art and not a banquet centerpiece) can be traced to the 1876 Centennial Exhibition where Caroline Shawk Brooks, a farm woman from Helena, Arkansas, displayed her ''Dreaming Iolanthe'', a basrelief bust of a woman modeled in butter.〔 It was kept cold with a system of layered bowls and frequent ice changes.〔 Brooks had no formal art training but as a farmer she spent years making butter and in 1867, to make the work more interesting, she began sculpting it, eventually using it as a selling point.〔 As her skills progressed she began to see it as more than marketing butter, indeed as an art form unto itself.〔 In 1873 she made her masterpiece ''Dreaming Iolanthe'', which she would re-do over the years at regional exhibitions around the US.〔 Thus she was invited to bring a replica to the Centennial Exhibition in 1876 where it drew so much attention and praise she was invited to sculpt live for the crowds.〔 Afterwards she studied in Paris and Florence and eventually became a professional sculptor who worked in marble, but occasionally continued to make butter art.〔 She returned for the 1893 Chicago Columbian Exposition and made busts of Queen Isabella and Christopher Columbus. By then, however, there were other butter sculptors: the art form had come into its own.〔 The heyday of butter sculpting was from about 1890 to 1930. During this period refrigeration became widely available, and the American dairy industry began promoting butter sculpture as a way to compete against synthetic butter substitute like Oleomargarine (margarine).〔 Butter sculpting decreased during the Great Depression and WWII due to shortages but picked up again after the war.〔 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Butter sculpture」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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